In my previous post http://wp.me/pIpWO-5M i showed you how to create your own nbm-modules with the help of JRebel. Today i will show you how you can use JRebel to fasten up the development of the NetBeans IDE platform modules.

So if you want to use JRebel to “instantly reload” your compiled changes to a locally compiled bleeding-edge-development-version of NetBeans IDE you have to follow these steps:

create or generate a jrebel.xml in the sourcefolder of the module – let the JRebel-plugin do this for you

run the module against the previously compiled version of NetBeans IDE (now called “target-platform“) using the context menu-entry “Run” (you will see the default JRebel headers in the output window, which means JRebel is loaded, and the Target-IDE will be opened)

make your changes to the code, compile via F9

go back to “target-platform“, do your actions again and the changes are reloaded instantly